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“Sometimes it’s people whose lives are in a mess, who might be a little bit psychic. There might be something in the house. It all gets mixed together.”

Stewart doesn’t wear his dog collar, or tell people he is a minister, when he’s on psychic duty. He’s not ashamed of his calling – he just doesn’t want to give anyone the wrong idea.

He explained: “Some people might say, ‘That’s wonderful, you’ve come to exorcise me.’ Well we don’t do that. The dog collar would build resentment in some and expectations in others.

“We’re trying to look objectively at what’s going on here, to study it. As well as helping people.”

In fact, other people’s ideas about what he does are one of the biggest barriers Stewart faces.

He said: “There are a lot of preconceptions, some people within Christian churches think this is all dabbling with the devil, which I don’t believe it is at all. It’s fascinating and it’s where science and religion are in a no man’s land.”

Popular culture has not helped the serious side of psychic investigation.

Stewart isn't a ghostbuster and has no psychic abilities (Image: Getty)

Stewart is not a Ghostbuster. He has no psychic abilities, although he works with people who do. And there is no common ground with the “mediums” who fill concert halls.

He said: “I’m not terribly excited by public demonstrations of mediumship. One to one sessions, where the sitter is unknown and doesn’t give anything away, that’s much more interesting. Charlatanism – let’s call it what it is – is soon found out.”

He sees no contradiction between his work and his Christian belief in the afterlife.

“When people die, I think they do not always go to a better place. People who were nasty, selfish, even evil - and there is evil in the world - these people would intend to inhabit the sewers of any world that existed afterwards.

“That’s why people are a little bit wary of folk dabbling in the occult. They go to ouija boards, they end up tuning in to the sewers rather than the higher spheres.”

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Stewart acknowledges that there are various explanations as to why these sewer-dwellers pull the hair and hide the belongings of some folk and not others.

“One theory is that, when people die, they are bound to their surroundings. They hang about where they were unhappy and that unhappiness is transferring itself psychically to the person who lives there.”

Stewart is a scientist as well as a minister, with a degree in physics. The more the physical universe is explained, he believes , the less we know about how it sits with the spiritual world.

He said: “In the 21st century we are coming to science with quantum theory and dark matter. We know more about what matter is and what constitutes life. Consciousness is a fascinating interface between the two.

“In my lifetime, there has been an enormous explosion in sub-atomic particle physics, genetics and bioengineering, huge advances, but it has created more mystery.